SpaceX to unveil Dragon V2 manned space taxi tomorrow—Ars will be there

Plus, a new SpaceX thruster system completes qualification tests.

Yesterday, SpaceX invited press to view its Dragon V2 manned spacecraft on Thursday, May 29. Elon Musk, the commercial spaceflight company’s founder and CEO, wrote one month ago on Twitter that his company would show off "actual flight design hardware” of the Dragon V2, “not a mockup," in May. Ars will be in Los Angeles for the event, bringing you photos and news from the scene, but viewers can also watch from home—SpaceX will be offering a live webcast here at 7pm PDT.

The Dragon V2 will be an updated version of SpaceX’s current Dragon capsules, which are unmanned and have made several trips to and from the International Space Station (ISS) in the last two years. Work on the V2 has been partially funded and developed with help from NASA, which hopes to have a manned “space taxi” to shuttle crew and cargo into orbit by 2017.

That timing is important, as NASA shuttered its space shuttle program in 2011. Today, NASA depends on Russian Soyuz rockets to get astronauts to the ISS and pays Russia $71 million per seat in the shuttle. As tensions have grown between the US and Russia over foreign relations in Ukraine, it has become increasingly uncertain how much longer the US will be able to rely on Russia’s shuttle service.

The Dragon V2 will reportedly have room for a mixture of cargo and up to seven crew members.

SpaceX also announced yesterday that it completed qualifications testing of its SuperDraco thrusters for manned Dragon flights. The engine will power launch abort systems "and enable the vehicle to land propulsively on Earth or another planet with pinpoint accuracy,” SpaceX wrote in a press release. (We are tantalized by the reference to “another planet.”)

As a successor to the Draco thrusters currently used on the Dragon capsules, the SuperDraco thrusters will be able to restart multiple times and deliver 16,000 pounds of thrust. "In addition, the engines have the ability to deep throttle, providing astronauts with precise control and enormous power,” according to SpaceX’s press release. Each manned Dragon spacecraft will be outfitted with eight of the SuperDraco thrusters built into the sidewalls of the spacecraft.

The thrusters will be built using direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), or 3D printing, so that "robust and high-performing engine parts can be created at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional manufacturing methods,” Musk said in a statement.

Stay tuned for Ars' pictures and coverage of the spacecraft tomorrow evening.